Hosed down from the ribald play by Luther Davis and
the unexpurgated novel Shore Leave by Frederic Wakeman
and safely but lamely scripted by Julius Epstein, this
military farce never gets rolling and the comedy seems
forced. It's a silly war time comedy flatly directed
by Stanley Donen (Indiscreet"/"Charade"/ "The Grass Is
Greener"). It calls for a balancing act of the cynical
with the romantic, something a director like Billy
Wilder could do in his sleep but Donen is too
heavy-handed to pull off. The other faults are that
Cary Grant at 52 is too old for the pilot part, though
he almost makes it believable; Jayne Mansfield in a
leading role stands out in all the wrong ways as a
cartoonish platinum blonde bimbo who can't act as she
takes the film on a wrong turn, though seeing her
dressed as Rosie the Riveter might be the best thing
about the film.

Andy Crewson (Cary Grant), McCann (Ray Walston) and
Mississip (Larry Blyden) are three navy war heroes who
go on an unofficial four-day shore leave in San
Francisco and get into a few jams. They fly in 1944
from Honolulu to San Francisco with their cowardly and
conniving public relations officer Lt. Wallace (Werner
Klemperer) and manage to stay for free in a fancy
hotel through a deal with the slippery hotel manager.
Party animal Crewson draws a party crowd to their
suite by advertising nylon stockings, which pulls in
Alice (Jayne Mansfield). When the nylons don't
materialize as anything but a lure, Alice remains to
party as a crowd gathers and she cuddles up with a
gap-toothed gob (Nathaniel Frey). Crewson has eyes for
icy socialite Gwinnith Livingston (Suzy Parker, a
former model, voiced by Deborah Kerr), whose
fiancée is an offensive war profiteering
shipyard owner Eddie Turnbull (Leif Erickson).
Predictably, Crewson gets Turnbull's goat by stealing
her away from him and he uses his navy contacts to get
even. Other sidelights include the married McCann
running in abstention for a Boston Congressman post
and cynically wishing for a wound to help his
campaign, but all the while hoping to get out of
harm's way.

In the end, the real heroes run back to the front
lines to escape the smug home front types and all the
phoniness over patriotism. Somehow all the glibness
never translates to funny, and the weak story with
serious asides falls on its kisser despite its
talented cast and Fox giving it a glossy look.